Here is a step by step design guide which will help you fromnext time convert your drawings or ideas into 3D modelswhich are a better representation and also good to look .For the purpose of explaining the use we have chosen tobuild a model of a Hexapod . So if you can use ms paintyou can do this .

I eventually decided upon a design whereby the 6 legs weredivided into three pairs, with each pair being joined by top andbottom beams. The legs were sat on ball-bearing thrust racesto reduce friction and allow the robot to turn easier.

The hexapod robot developed by the Illinois hexapod group ismodeled after the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana.We selected this insect as a model because of its extraordinaryspeed and agility and because the structure and physiology of

this insect are reasonably well known. The body of the robot measures58 cm by 14 cm by 23 cm length, width, and height. It has anadditional 15 cm ground clearance when standing. The legs,projecting laterally and to the front, add about 38 cm to thewidth and 18 cm to the length. The robot weighs approximately11 kg, most of the weight being in the valves that control thepneumatic actuators. The physical dimensions of the robot bodyand legs are generally between 12 and 17 times the size of the

comparable dimensions of the cockroach. The robot, however,is considerably heavier in relation to its size due to the weightof the valves.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Mhex II is an omnidirectional hexapod (6 legged) walking robot.Each leg has 3 motors which allow the feet to be placedanywhere in 3D space within mechanical limits. Unlike my firsthexapod robot (MHEX), this configuration allows the robotto walk in any direction keeping it's feet fixed at a point onground without slipping.http://mikael.geekland.org/

An 18-DOF hexapod robot developed at the University of Florence

An 18-DOF hexapod robot was complete designed anddeveloped at the University of Florence by Andrea Foschi in2005. It was later tamed by Marco Natalini and AlessandroMambelli using Evidence Srl's FLEX Light board and ERIKAkernel. The main purpose for adopting FLEX is dueto its low-cost development kit that permits easy additionof features i.e. sensors and behaviour. Since then, a numberof students have worked on this hexapod. The future versionwould use the FLEX Full board.http://www.evidence.eu.com/content/view/261/266/

Hexapod - Build Blog

Our design for the first hexapod is simple. It is supposedto be a prototype for a more complex robot that we willbuild this fall. The design includes three servos per leg.One servo will rotate the leg while the other two performthe functions of a hip and a knee.

Universities, high schools, and hobbyists have usedit since 1992. Stiquito is unique not only because it is soinexpensive but also because its applications are almost limitless.The propulsion in these robots is nitinol, an alloy actuator wirethat expands and contracts, roughly emulating the operationof a muscle. The application of heat causes a crystallinestructure change in the wire. Nitinol contracts when heatedand returns to its original size and shape when cooled.http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Stiquito/whatisstiquito.htm

Monday, December 22, 2008

Robot II is a hexapod with three active, revolute degrees offreedom (DOF) and one spring-loaded, translational DOF per leg.Each active DOF is powered by a separate 6 Watt DC motorwith an integral transmission. The sensing of joint position isaccomplished by a rotary potentiometer attached to each joint.Foot forces are monitored by load cells mounted on the tibiasegments. The structure of the body is composed oflightweight aircraft plywood, balsa and aluminum.

The SILO6 is a hexapod designed as the mobile platform of the DYLEMA project

intended to configure a system for detection and location of antipersonnel land mines.Walking robots are intrinsically slow machines, and machine speedis well known to depend theoretically on the number of legs themachine has. Therefore, a hexapod can achieve higher speedthan a quadruped, and a hexapod achieves its highest speedwhen using a wave gait with a duty factor of β = 1/2, that is, usingalternating tripods. Although stability is not optimum when usingalternating tripods, a hexapod configuration has been chosen justto try to increase the machine’s speed. The walking-robotdevelopment is based on certain subsystems developed forthe SILO-4 walking robot. The SILO4 is a quadruped robotdeveloped for basic research activities and educational purposes.For this reason, this new walking robot is named SILO-6,referring to its six legs.http://www.iai.csic.es/users/silo6/SILO6_WalkingRobot.htm

Sprawlita

Sprawlita is a Shape Deposition Manufactured platform with six legs of 2 (actuated) DOF each. Based on the Sprawl 1.0 and Mini-Sprawl prototypes, it is a platform to test ideas about locomotion schemes, leg design and leg arrangement and to build compliant leg structures using SDM. The size is the same scale as Mini-Sprawl, with slightly more mass (270g vs. 250g) and less stiff compliant hip joints with only one (intended) degree of freedom.http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/biomimetics/

BILL-Ant Series Robots

The Biologically-Inspired Legged Locomotion Ant (BILL-Ant) is an 18-DOF hexapod with six passive DOF feet for force sensing, a 3-DOF neck and actuated mandibles with force sensing pincer plates (28-DOF total). The robot uses force sensors in the feet and pincers to actively comply with its environment and respond to external pertubations.http://biorobots.cwru.edu/projects/billant/

Sunday, December 21, 2008

This is my autonomous hexapod robot that I built a few years ago.
It uses 12 R/C servos for actuators. The 6 that raise and lower
the legs are Hobbico CS-72 1/4 scale and the 6 that move the legs
forward and backward are several brands of standard 1/10
scale servoshttp://home.ctlnet.com/~robotguy67/hexapod/hexapod.htm

Robot III

a hexapod with kinematics based on studies of the cockroach
Blaberus discoidalis performed in the Ritzmann Lab in theBiology Department at CWRU. It has a total of 24 degrees of freedom
with five for each front leg, four for the middle legs and three for the rear
legs. The robot is pneumatically actuated using off the shelf cylinders and
blocks of three-way pneumatic valves. Pulse width modulation of the
valves is implemented for variable position control of the cylinders.
The structure of the robot is machined from high grade aluminum alloys.http://biorobots.cwru.edu/projects/robot3/robot3.htm

Bio-Robotic Choreography

The 6-legged robot will use a pentagraph mechanism where the
movement of the foot is mirrored by the joint at opposite end. The
effect is that the robot is hanging from a virtual pendulum in the sky.
This will help the robot to stay on it's feet. Stationary it will be nearly
5 metres across and measure 2 metres from knee to foot.
The designers are hoping to limit the weight to less than 250 kgs.http://ahds.ac.uk/performingarts/collections/sci-art/design.htm

Rhex

RHex is a small, power and computationally autonomous hexapod
robot with passively compliant legs. Its basic design incorporates
only one actuator per leg, capable of achieving fast (~2.5m/s)
and robust locomotion over complex outdoor terrain. As a result
of the minimal use of exteroceptive sensing, most of its behaviors
are task-level open loop, driven by an internal clock. These basic
behaviors rely on a human operator for more complicated
tasks such as navigation.http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~saranli/research/rhex.html